I am hoping to get an idea from a few people about their impressions of OpenInsight in regards to bugs and crashes. I don't want to criticize this product but I am having so many problems with it and I am wondering if I am the only one.

First of all this is my system that OpenInsight runs on:

OpenInsight version 3.5

Windows 98

Pentium2-400MHz on a Microstar MS-6119 motherboard

128 Meg RAM

STB Velocity 4400 AGP video card

8 Gig hard drive (3 Gigs free space)

Is there a problem with OI on Windows 98?

Here is a summary of my project so far and the problems that I have had.

The OI engine dies usually a few times a day when I am doing development. Is this typical?

I am upgrading an older arev application. I copied the old arev tables into an OI directory. The tables will not be shared with arev. After removing the old ".XREF" indexes and adding new "_XREF" indexes through the db manager index tool several of the indexes would not rebuild. The OI engine would die and I'd have to re-boot. I had to re-build the tables from scratch. (advice from tech support)

I copied the data from the old tables to the new tables and when I added indexes to the tables I lost all data except for the record keys from 3 of the tables. It took 2 or 3 times of rebuilding before I'd get the data to stay. I have an old table that it is still impossible to load data into if Revelation would like to look at it.

After building new tables from scratch I can not get some indexes to rebuild. I get an error "ENG0703 $1, line 1. Variable exceeds maximum length".

I have identical forms one of which shows an error "Variable exceeds maximum length" even when displaying the same record from the same table.

I have found several ways to kill the Open Engine and at times it seems to happen for no apparent reason so to me it does not seem very stable. I have also found bugs in the form builder and database manager.

So I am just wondering if these types of problems are common amoung OI users. I am wondering if the product is safe enough to suggest for use for my client. I've worked with several databases and I have never had as many problems with them as with this product. Is there a newer version of this product that works better?

Thanks.

Greg,

Yes .. I would upgrade to 3.7 (3.8 on the way). It is more stable than earlier version .. although I am having some problems with the repository

There are things to keep in mind when using OI ..

Deployed applications can not create/modify dictionaries, can not create tables (some applications need ot create monthly summary tables etc) in the runtime mode. Nor can runtimes FIX INDEXES

Although it looks like RTI has come up with a new product that is really a developer version which can be added to the runtime environment. Just another 800 or so ..

Also OI is a closed environment .. this means that there is no easy way to access data from the outside .. meaning no ODBC. You can do dde or access the engine .. but this is not for the faint of heart (or anyone who just wants to develop apps).

The only other problem with OI, as far as I am concerned, is that the tool set (controls) is rather limited.

Finally .. there are those at RTI who are very responsive to the developer base. There is also a very active group here who answer questions (sometimes in a limited 'yes/no'

So .. I can bring OI to clients IF the need for mv is important ..

dsig@teleport.com onmouseover=window.status=open your eyes to the possibility of change and renewal;return(true)"

David Tod Sigafoos ~ SigSolutions

voice: 503-639-8080

Greg and Dsig,

Greg, as far as Windows 98 by itself is concerned, we don't know of any OS-dependent conflicts with OI. One of our tech reps uses Win98 as the primary OS on his "work" (read: troubleshooting) machine, and it behaves identically to the copies on the '95 machines.

I'm not sure which FAT he uses, VFAT or FAT32; do you know what your drive is using? That's the only major difference I can think of between '95 and '98 other than the cosmetic changes and the increased number of little applets that it likes to load in your tray (and the rep who runs '98 runs a lot of those, too).

RE: ODBC: You _can_ use ODBC with OI–it supports 16-bit natively. However, 32-bit ODBC sometimes works through thunking on a "you get what you get" basis. What I mean by this, is it either works or it doesn't. I think I remember somebody reporting to me that they could read MS Access data fine, but couldn't write to something, whereas they couldn't communicate at all with another product. That's with thunking though, as I said, OI properly supports 16-bit ODBC out of the box.

And come on, DDE isn't _THAT_ hard

-Scott

Scott,

Yes you can use ODBC out .. get data from something else BUT can you get to OI data from another app (yes .. people do use tools other than OI ..).

As for DDE .. it is a 1990 technology .. similar to OI

dsig@teleport.com onmouseover=window.status=you have seen the rest .. now try the best!;return(true)"

David Tod Sigafoos ~ SigSolutions

voice: 503-639-8080

Dsig,

Doh! Nope. Got me there. There's data warehousing to get stuff out, which is pretty nifty stuff, but yes, there aren't any OpenInsight ODBC drivers (16 bit or otherwise).

-Scott

Greg,

I've been doing OI development for the past 5 years, and I can honestly tell you that I haven't had half the problems you're describing here.

I'm adding to my apps every day, and the only times that I get the engine to lock up is if I do something stupid myself. I'm using 3.7 at this time, with mostly BTree indexes, and my main app ( an ERP/Inventory management/etc system) has about 300 data tables with the corresponding number of forms and reports to match.

Once I learned how to avoid the pitfalls caused by incorrect MFSs, no more problems for me. The Web and Client/Server part of OI is working out pretty good too!

The only bad part, as DSig mentioned is that the underlying technology is based on 16 bit architecture and you cannot incorporate any newer or 3rd party controls. JRev will change that, and give us a huge competitive advantage, but there are still quite a few months worth of wait on that one…

But in the mean time, give OI a chance. I think it's stabler than you imagine once you get the hang of it.

Dave Pociu

d.pociu@snet.net

Hi Greg,

OpenInsight version 3.5

Please upgrade to 3.7. We also have a 3.71 pre-release coming out (hopefully today – just waiting for some web site issues to be sorted out) that fixes a couple of regressions in 3.7.

Windows 98

That is what I run. Unfortunately, there is no better OS for most people … it's the only one that supports most hardware and software … but 98 is not the most stable OS I've used.

STB Velocity 4400 AGP video card

Make sure you use the NVidia Riva TNT reference drivers. STB produces the lowest quality drivers I've ever seen (well, they compete with S3 for that title, I guess). In my experience I have never (literally, never) received anything but a blue screen using STB drivers.

The OI engine dies usually a few times a day when I am doing development. Is this typical?

No, that is not normal. It dies a few times a year on me, and I'm guessing I abuse it much worse than you (debugging system code on pre-releases, etc.)

I am upgrading an older arev application. I copied the old arev tables into an OI directory. The tables will not be shared with arev. After removing the old ".XREF" indexes and adding new "_XREF" indexes through the db manager index tool several of the indexes would not rebuild. The OI engine would die and I'd have to re-boot. I had to re-build the tables from scratch. (advice from tech support)

That was good advice. It sounds like those tables were hammered. I would like to know what the Windows error message and message details were … that can help us track down some types of problems.

I copied the data from the old tables to the new tables and when I added indexes to the tables I lost all data except for the record keys from 3 of the tables.

I don't understand. Adding an index does not write to or delete from a data table … can you explain what you mean by "lost all data"? Maybe you logged out and back in but didn't have the database definition saved so the index table was not available thus preventing the data table from being accessed?

It took 2 or 3 times of rebuilding before I'd get the data to stay.

What do you mean?

I have an old table that it is still impossible to load data into if Revelation would like to look at it.

Do you mean you cannot access one of the old Arev tables to copy the data from or you cannot write to a new table or you cannot index it?

After building new tables from scratch I can not get some indexes to rebuild. I get an error "ENG0703 $1, line 1. Variable exceeds maximum length".

We do have an SPR#CPUY3MWSTT with the following description:

Index Rebuild on huge files fails with Variable Exceeds Maximum Length

It is a high-priority SPR but we have been unable to duplicate it internally. What is the full text of the error? What is the module name in which the error occurs?

I have identical forms one of which shows an error "Variable exceeds maximum length" even when displaying the same record from the same table.

So the same form displaying the same record sometimes fails? Or are they two different forms? There is another thread discussing a problem like this. Is that the problem you are seeing?

I have found several ways to kill the Open Engine and at times it seems to happen for no apparent reason so to me it does not seem very stable.

What ways?

I have also found bugs in the form builder and database manager.

What bugs? I would like to see if they are reproducible here … we can get them into the project plan.

Thanks,

Cameron Purdy

Revelation Software

dsig,

Someone did develop an ODBC driver for OpenInsight. There is also an ActiveX (OLE automation server) that provides access to the engine.

Cameron Purdy

Revelation Software

Someone did develop an ODBC driver for OpenInsight.

Who/what/where? If this were true you would have been able to prevent a number of developers from leaving RTI for Ardent, Oracle, Microsoft SQL, pervasive and others.

What happened to Simba? How could anyone except an absolute fool reject their offer to help you develop a pilot read-only ODBC for FREE where the cost to go to read/write is only 15k! Back a few years ago (around the time you made a foolish marketing decision that you were no longer going to support AREV- look how long that lasted), their price was 25k and I tried to get you people to do the right thing.

All it would take is to have OpenEngine running all the time on an NT server. How hard could it have been. It's probably too late now…

View this thread on the forum...